


Drowning in my tears, this love’s a sinking boat

by Toomanyfandoms99



Series: Supernatural Season 15 Codas [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode: s15e01 Back and to the Future, Introspection, M/M, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 22:54:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21044138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toomanyfandoms99/pseuds/Toomanyfandoms99
Summary: “He was our kid.”It’s a loop that plays in Dean’s head the entire day and afterwards, when the ghosts are gone from the town.The four words linger in the background, and Dean absently wonders if he said too much.  He was always one to remain curt and bury his emotions.  He was an expert at it, in fact.It was something that came so naturally to him that he often didn’t realize the effect it had on everyone else.





	Drowning in my tears, this love’s a sinking boat

**Author's Note:**

> I’ll be doing season 15 codas sporadically throughout the year. I gathered up my season 14 codas into a series if you want to have a semi-long read.
> 
> The title was taken from the song “Wave” by Meghan Trainor.

“He was our kid.”

It’s a loop that plays in Dean’s head the entire day and afterwards, when the ghosts are gone from the town.

The four words linger in the background, and Dean absently wonders if he said too much. He was always one to remain curt and bury his emotions. He was an expert at it, in fact. 

It was something that came so naturally to him that he often didn’t realize the effect it had on everyone else. 

He was used to everyone close to him dying. Sam was too. Which was why Dean learned at a young age that his little brother’s feelings came first. He could bury his own for as long as he wanted. It was why Sam was always better at voicing his emotions.

Dean tried to keep everything bottled up inside, hidden even from his own brother. 

Goddamn Belphegor. He just had to take over Jack’s body. Jack. 

Oh, Jack...

Moisture prickled Dean’s eyes, but even in the safety of his bunker bedroom, he refused to let any tears fall. He couldn’t show weakness when he was currently trusting a demon inhabiting Jack’s body only a few hallways away.

Belphegor already smelled weakness. Dean already said four words that showed too much in a foolish surge of emotion. 

“He was our kid.”

Belphegor knew without a doubt that Dean and Sam were brothers. He knew exactly what Dean meant. He read between the lines and awkwardly replied, “oh...sorry.”

Oh, he should definitely be goddamn sorry.

The rift was widening between Dean and Cas. It was Dean’s fault, he knew it. He knew how stupidly stubborn he could be sometimes. He knew how irrational it was that he let Belphegor continue to mentally torture them this way. He knew how much it hurt Sam and Cas to see Jack’s body used to house a demon.

But Dean, in a sick twisted way, was desensitized to dead loved ones returning to destroy once-happy memories he had with them. 

Cas wasn’t so lucky. He didn’t have the experience of an entire lifetime loving and losing countless people. He still felt emotions as keenly as a child. Everything cut Cas deep, where for Sam it was merely a surface wound. Something that would heal soon.

Cas’s cuts were so deep that they never truly healed. It was as if a blade was run over the same slice constantly, bleeding and scabbing and bleeding in a cycle. 

When Dean was introspective about this in particular, he wondered if Cas regretted plucking him from Hell and rebelling for him.

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Cas did everything for him. All in the name of Dean Winchester. Everything.

There was no way Dean could ever repay Cas for the sacrifices he made. Pushing Cas away did the job just fine for years.

But now? Now, with Jack dead and Belphegor using him as a meat suit?

“He was our kid.”

There was no going back from the profound effect Jack’s death had on them. All three of them. 

And to have their mourning time be taken away by a demon was cruel. No doubt one of Chuck’s jokes.

Dean knew the role he was unintentionally playing in this particular situation. He was the distant father, the macho man. The grumbling grunting hard-ass who wore more masks than he could keep track of at any given time. 

He knew when he brought Jack fishing that he got too close. Distant grumbling father he may be, but his feelings could only be suppressed, not turned off entirely. No matter how much he wanted to flip them off like a switch.

Now it was up to Dean to hold Sam and Cas together. But Dean was currently fighting with Cas. 

So they were all a mess. Obviously. The fact that they let Belphegor inside the bunker was evidence enough.

Dean knew he was being an asshole. Cas believed Dean didn’t see the brokenness in his expression. How Cas wore his sadness as an accessory, etching so deeply that the hard lines on his face bent downwards into little frowns. How Cas’s salient eyes were ready at any moment to overflow with moisture, to break down and cry with his bottom lip wobbling. How Cas was tired and defeated and aged years in a single day, but still managed to defeat a crew of ghosts while protecting a mother and her young daughter.

“He was our kid.”

Jack was Cas, through and through. Jack was Cas’s child, and he was taken from them so quickly, defiled so easily. It cut Cas so deeply that Dean couldn’t comprehend it.

If Dean was the distant father, Cas was the caring mother. Or father. Whichever. Whatever. In the classic family analogy that Dean was visualizing.

Did that make Sam an uncle? Maybe. Or perhaps another father separate from Dean and Cas.

It was a hard thing to imagine. Dean and Sam were always shackled to one another, but what about adding Cas into the mix?

That’s when Dean’s thoughts got infinitely complicated. 

What they were doing...bickering slash arguing, ignoring each other, leaving their relationship unsaid...it was all very…

No, Dean. No.

Marital.

There. He said it to himself. It was marital. 

Dean huffed aloud in the emptiness of his bedroom. He and Cas might as well be fucking married.

They had done it all. Finished each other’s sentences. Adapted to each other’s quirks. Integrated their hunting techniques to work in tandem, a perfect flow where one would always pick up the other. Argued about little things that didn’t matter in the long run. Pissed each other off and ran away for prolonged periods of time before reuniting and realizing just how much they needed each other.

The only thing they hadn’t done?

Closed the distance between each other’s lips.

Dean scoffed and shook his head. There it was. There it finally was. He thought about it properly, and he admitted it to himself.

Fuck.

“He was our kid.”

They were equally hopeless. Two very different fathers to a dead nephilim with very different ways of coping with the loss of Jack.

Dean did what he did best: closed himself off, thereby closing everyone else off from him.

And Cas was barely holding it together, as delicate as a glass vase; if he was pushed off the table with the slightest touch, he would shatter with no hope of being glued back together.

Cas was a very different angel with very human feelings. He was too attuned to other people, and formed strong attachments. It made him vulnerable in a way that Dean wasn’t. 

Dean learned long ago how to bury attachments. But not when it came to Sam and Cas. Even Jack wormed his way through Dean’s sturdy defenses.

Dean wished he knew what to do. He understood Cas, since he had known the man for a decade. He understood the pain Cas was going through with Jack, because he was going through the same thing, as was Sam.

However, someone had to remain vigilant. Sam and Cas were compromised. Someone had to keep an eye on Belphegor. 

And that left him to take on the job.

He couldn’t talk to Cas. Not yet. Not after his thought process took him on a dangerous path riddled with burning coals and roses.

The roses may smell sweet, but the fiery coals would set him aflame if he wasn’t careful.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated!


End file.
